Leonardo DaVinci, La Belle Ferroniere

Leonardo da Vinci: Painter At The Court Of Milan is said by the gallery to be the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held.

The Trafalgar Square gallery is borrowing works including La Belle Ferroniere from the Louvre museum in Paris, the Madonna Litta (also known as Virgin and Child) from the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and Saint Jerome from the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Rome, for the major exhibition.

It will concentrate on Leonardo’s time working as a salaried artist in the Milan court of Duke Lodovico Sforza in the late 1480s and 1490s.

Continue reading — National Gallery to stage major Leonardo da Vinci exhibition

Detail from Edvard Munch’s Madonna

The controversial artwork, in Munch’s famous swirling style, had been estimated to fetch £500,000 to £700,000 at Bonhams Prints sale in London. Bonhams said that as well as setting a UK record, the image was also the second most expensive print to be sold in the world. Another Munch work, Vampire II, sold in Oslo in 2007 for around £1,256,000.

Continue reading — Munch’s Madonna print sells for record £1.25m

The Virgin Mary is seen from the artwork “The Virgin on the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci (1491-1508), at the National Gallery in London July 14, 2010. An 18-month project to restore Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin of the Rocks” revealed the Renaissance artist likely painted the entire work himself rather than, as previously thought, with the help of his assistants.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks is to go back on display in the National Gallery (afternoon of 14th July) after an 18-month restoration project which started in November 2008.

The decision to restore the painting came after several years of intensive study of Leonardo’s work and that of his Milanese associates and assistants – the so-called leonardeschi – from within the Gallery’s collection. The experience gained from examining these pictures reinforced the view that ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ could not be appreciated as originally intended. The cleaning process began because some varnish that was applied in 1948–9 was particularly unstable and prone to yellowing. Fine cracking in that varnish, and atmospheric dirt which had become absorbed in its waxy surface, meant that the ability of the varnish to fully saturate the picture had become seriously compromised. As a result the subtlety of shading and the sense of space were markedly reduced, and the impact of this great work significantly lessened.

Continue reading — Restored Leonardo Masterpiece Goes Back on Display at the National Gallery in London

Employees pose for photographers on an early Victorian private coach capable of transporting around ten people at Christie’s South Kensington in London. The carriage was auctioned in the Althorp Attic Sale, and is one of the carriages among the highlights of selection of works from Althorp and Spencer House, the historic London home of the Spencer family.

Christie’s offered a selection of works from the Spencer Collections this week at their London salerooms. The auctions realised a total of £21,076,288 / $31,989,353 / €25,360,494. The top price was paid for A Commander being armed for Battle by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) which sold for £9,001,250 / $13,663,898 / €10,846,506 at the evening auction of Old Master & 19th Century Art on 6 July.

The Trustees of Althorp Estate: “For the sales this week we carefully chose a selection of works from Althorp that could be offered at public auction while maintaining the breadth and integrity of the core Spencer collections. The Trustees are pleased that the auctions at Christie’s attracted such significant worldwide interest from both collectors and public institutions, and that they realised a total of £21.1 million. The sales have released capital that will make it possible for us to further diversify our assets, particularly in the acquisition, development and retention of commercial and residential property. This will support our fundamental aim of ensuring that the Althorp Estate thrives for future generations.”

Continue reading — Works of Art from the Spencer Collections Realise $32 Million at Christie’s

Attributed to Diego Velazquez, The Education of the Virgin, ca. 1617–18. Oil on canvas. Yale University Art Gallery.

Based on the research of John Marciari, currently Curator of European Art and Head of Provenance Research at the San Diego Museum of Art and formerly the Nina and Lee Griggs Associate Curator of Early European Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, the seventeenth-century Spanish painting portraying the Education of the Virgin in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery has been reattributed to Diego Velazquez. The painting was donated to the Gallery in 1925 by Henry Hotchkiss Townshend, b.a. 1897, ll.b. 1901, and Raynham Townshend, md, b.s. 1900s. It is thought to have been in the Townsend family for at least 40 years and was in poor condition when it arrived at the Gallery. Prior to the current attribution, the painting was considered to be by an unknown artist from Seville, Spain. The work is now believed to have been painted by Velazquez in Seville around 1617, making it one of the artist’s earliest works. The painting is currently being studied in advance of conservation treatment and is not on view.

Continue reading — Early Diego Velázquez Masterpiece Identified at Yale University

A employee looks at an artwork, entitled Pink Cher, by British artist Scott King, on display in the Saatchi Gallery at Sloane Square in London, Britain, 01 July 2010. British art collector Charles Saatchi announced on 01 July he is donating his London gallery including more than 200 artworks worth more than 25 million GBP (37.7 million USD or 30.3 million EUR) to the British nation. The artworks being donated include Tracey Emin’s My Bed and Chapman brothers works. The gallery will become the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca London).

Art collector Charles Saatchi has a gift for Britain. It includes Tracy Emin’s messy bed, Grayson Perry’s explicit pottery and a room full of engine oil.

The advertising tycoon, whose patronage made household names of artists like Emin and Damien Hirst, announced Thursday he is donating his London gallery and 200 works in its collection to the nation as a new public art museum.

Continue reading — Charles Saatchi Donates 200 Artworks Valued at More than 25 Million Pounds, Gallery to UK

Andre Derain’s landscape from the Ambroise Vollard collection, which sold for a record £16.5 million

After the buzz of expectation created by the London salerooms, they did produce a record series of Impressionist and Modern art auctions last week, but only just. Mid-way through the fifth and final session, the sales total crept past the previous record of £298 million, set in June 2008, finally ending up at £303 million. There were no celebrations, however, and a palpable air of disappointment pervaded. Strip away the auctioneers’ commissions, and the total was nearer £250 million, below the £300 to £450 million estimate for the series.

Things began badly at Bonhams, which sold none of its top lots. A Chagall painting, bursting with figures and energy, was estimated to fetch at least £1.2 million. But buyers were put off because it was said to have been painted over 30 years, and it bore a stamped rather than hand-written signature.

Continue reading — Art market euphoria replace by realism